“Borderless” by Michelle Sui

Lush landscapes and mountain terrain,
flying over the Rockies in the pre-spring days when snowcaps linger from eyes above the stratosphere;
all is bare and full, peaceful and haunting
there, then––I saw you once.
Once above the mountaintops whose tips are white like clouds,
once amidst the barren redstone,
plain, vast expanses of land and earth,
wide enough to fill voids at the bottom or top of insatiable thirst.
I saw you with eyes not mine,
going the long haul across the West,
the golden states full of ghosts,
swallowed stories of wagon and dust,
dirt and stone rubbed in two.
You were covered in dust like the rest of us,
bronze statues of the sun and clay
hints of love between those wrinkled eyes,
weathered folds,
squinting against or at or for the bright orbs in this part of land.

2.

Do I remember you.
Light is gold as braided girls,
running across plains and fields of sooth,
dryness proclaiming;
the wind crossed and uncrossed you.
I swallowed by the mouthful on my trip down the slope
picking flowers from another land,
well-nourished plants of indigo,
sea-worn and moist like your tongue.
Water lacks color,
pictures lack ghosts.
The warmth covers even in shadows,
though we said none, had none, for none, is none after all.
Interior dust and exterior snow
which, why do we still see as falling?
when all melted last spring
seven years ago,
disappeared into the bright orbs in this part of land
vast and golden,
turning most things into stone.